World's tallest roller coaster coming to Florida

A 520-foot-high roller coaster, the tallest in the world, will be built in Florida. We just don't know exactly where yet.

An official announcement will come in a few weeks, said Michael Kitchen, president of US Thrill Rides, the Windermere-based company that designed the ride.

The coaster design, which US Thrill Rides refers to as Polercoaster, is tall and lean but has a small footprint, Kitchen said. The 520-foot version coming to Florida fits in a 150-foot diameter, he said.

At the top of the attraction is a double-decker restaurant and observation deck that can house retail outlets. People can travel by elevator to eat and shop up there without boarding the thrill ride.

Riders board the eight-passenger vehicles at ground level, then work their way to the top in a spiral pattern. The descent is more thrill-packed with sharp dives, rolls, loops and inversions, Kitchen said. The top speed will be more than 60 mph, he said.

No current Central Florida theme-park attraction is taller than 200 feet. A 450-foot observation wheel set for the I-Drive Live complex on International Drive is scheduled to open in late 2014.

Kitchen said he expects a groundbreaking in summer of 2014 and anticipates it opening in spring of 2016. But he wouldn't say where in the Sunshine State it will go up. A contract with his customer has been signed and engineering work has begun, he said.

“The customer wants to do a very good press release with the theming and the naming of the structure and the artwork to support it and that’s going to take a few short weeks," Kitchen said. " It is imminent.”

In addition to being of record height, the new coaster's steel track will be very long, Kitchen said.

“We expect to break many, many multiple world records on this ride," he said.

A 325-foot version of Polercoaster already has been announced for LakePoint Sporting Community, a 1,600-acre entertainment compound under construction near Atlanta. It will be called the White Knuckler.

The Polercoaster design can be varied for individual clients, Kitchen said. The thrill level can be adjusted to be family-friendly, he said, with less G's and fewer loops. The attraction's price tag ranges between $20 million and $60 million, depending on options, Kitchen said.

The current record holder for height is the Kingda Ka coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, according to the Roller Coaster Database That ride tops out at 456 feet, it says.

The coaster industry will probably go even higher into the sky in the future, Kitchen said. A Ferris wheel in Dubai goes 800 feet in the air, he said.

“Every time I think we’ve come to a limit, we go higher,” Kitchen said.

“There’s a lot of vertical stuff happening in our industry right now. It’s quite an exciting undertaking,” said Dennis Speigel, president of the International Theme Park Services, a Cincinnati-based trade group.

Speigel said he didn't expect the new ride to land in any of Orlando's major theme parks.

"I think it might be in one of the associated, ancillary I-Drive type things, something of that nature,” he said.

"We have nothing to announce at this time," a Walt Disney World spokeswoman said.

Busch Gardens, which is building a 330-foot vertical drop attraction set to open next spring, would not comment on the upcoming coaster.

The giant observation wheel planned for International Drive is supposed to rival the world-famous London Eye. But will the view from an Orlando Eye rival the well-known panorama provided by its English counterpart?

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — For the oldest town in America, St. Augustine has sure come a long way in recent years. The town of 14,000 on Florida's northern Atlantic coast celebrates its 450th birthday in late summer, but locals mostly have been rejoicing over the town's cultural growth.